I've observed more than one Chinese tea shop owner using a flat head screwdriver for this purpose. They seemed to work about as well as any custom puerh tools I've seen, although IMHO, nothing beats a spike for both loose & tight bings.

All the above mentioned tools are good when starting off with a whole new cake. What do you use after to carefully flake the leafs. I use a puerh knife from Scott but it works more like a wedge, and recently bought what looks like a throwing knife, something that shogun89 would use sold under puerh knife. I used an old dart before and find this works fine at prying/flaking compacted piece of broken off puerh cake. Actually the piledriver is cleaning puerh stains off someone's teeth. puerh stains are pretty strong.

nada wrote:I've observed more than one Chinese tea shop owner using a flat head screwdriver for this purpose. They seemed to work about as well as any custom puerh tools I've seen, although IMHO, nothing beats a spike for both loose & tight bings.

Nada do you know if that youle maocha was pressed into any beengs, or was it just sold as is in the bamboo? It's really good tea, especially for the price. It's a very strong (in a good way) smelling pu'er. I wish it were pressed into some beengs instead of buying a bunch of bamboo wrapped maocha bundles, but either way I'd love to have more.

thanks wrote:Nada do you know if that youle maocha was pressed into any beengs...?

Not that I'm aware of. These packages were made around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival, when people traditionally eat glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves in this fashion. I think the idea with the tea is that they have a basket of these tea packages and give them to family & friends. I was pleasantly surprised when I came across it - for the price, it's a good tea.